Archive for the ‘Space’ Category

It’s now been over a week since Malaysian Air flight 370 disappeared, and no one has any information to give the desperate families, who have been terrorized further by the media during the worst days of their lives. The sad fact is: no one knows where on earth the Boeing 777-200 has gone. Presuming, of course, that it’s still on earth. Even that theory is as reasonable as all the others.

First, it was presumed to be in the South China Sea, then Palau Perak, a tiny island in the middle of the Malacca Strait which is barely long enough to accommodate a wide-body, then the Bay of Bengal, the Gulf of Thailand, and the Andaman Islands. A couple of the TV speculators even suggested North Korea, which is theoretically possible, but very unlikely. And a couple of wackos even came up with an alien abduction theory.

Other theories included lithium batteries; the two Iranians with fraudulent passports, who had flown into Malaysia on their own passports; the one Uighur on the plane; the co-pilot’s violation of all post-9/11 regulations and inviting two hotties into the cockpit hoping he’d get a taste of theirs. Those are each numbers on the spinning wheel.

I’d like to know why the entire passenger manifest weren’t immediately run through Interpol, FBI, FAA, NTSB, and DHS databases as soon as it was known there was something very wrong with this flight.

The pilot had the best home flight simulator I’ve ever seen, and I’ve flown flight simulators ever since the graphics were green on black. Everyone’s talked about the pilot’s computer, but today was the first time anyone entered his house. He could have run a remote access program and wiped his flight plans out, and then run bit-by-bit disk-cleaning utility numerous times. What the Malaysians did was stand outside the house, humming a happy tune. “We don’t allow that in Malaysia,” but they’ve been known to execute pot-smokers with less than an ounce of weed. They supposedly needed a reason to enter the homes. WTF were they waiting for?

The international intelligence community seem to believe the crew was in full charge, in which case everyone in the passenger cabin would have had to be immobilized, including the flight attendants. It would be totally unreasonable to believe the entire flight crew was aware of what was happening. It could be why they reportedly climbed to 45,000′, above the flight ceiling of a 777. But it doesn’t make any sense that the plane made it to 23,000′ in about the span of a minute, because this aircraft would have gone supersonic, and broken into pieces.

For every scenario, there seems to be a good reason to believe; but by the same token, there are reasons to debunk the scenario. Some of the actions of whomever was in control are still unexplainable. The flight changed direction and altitude at specific waypoints.

The latest theory is that the plane, which was thought to have only 7 hours of fuel — a lot less, practically, since the plane climbed to 45,000′ and then being pinged at 23,000′ and climbing back up to 35,000′ they’d be using too much fuel to stay in the air that long. But this 777-200 got over almost eight hours, despite their erratic flying and presumably spending valuable fuel doing so, and the plane was pinged either over the Himalayas, or southward towards Indonesia. No one claims to know how the plane’s last ping was to the northwest or to the south.

We could fill an NHL arena with 18,000 people, and probably find no two people whose theories are the same. For all we know, the alien abduction theory sounds as plausible as any. Does anyone know where Richard Dreyfuss has been for the last week?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post after attending the launch of the Juno mission to Jupiter at Cape Canaveral.

In the short span of time since that date, the Russians lost a Proton rocket carrying an Express-AM4 satellite on August 17th, when an upper-stage failure caused it to crash in Kazakhstan.

The very next day, August 18th, the Chinese launched a Long March 2C rocket to nowhere, carrying what Xinhua described as “an experimental Shijian 11 satellite” (more likely, a surveillance satellite for its military), the debris from which is presumed to have “fallen back to earth.”

And just the other day, it was the Russians’ up again, and they hit it out of the park. A Progress cargo ship on top of a Soyuz rocket, carrying 3.5 tons of fuel and cargo intended for the crew of the International Space Station (ISS), failed just under five and a half minutes after launch. Its remains are now buried somewhere in the Altai Republic (not to be confused with Altair, the brightest star in the constellation Aquila), in a Siberian forest.

Though not quite as monumental as the Tunguska Event, this third and most recent crash is very troublesome for our manned space program, since we’re planning to rely on Russian Soyuz rockets to take live human American astronauts to and from the ISS at least for the next five years. Are we out of our freakin’ minds?

According to former astronaut Leroy Chiao, the U.S. is currently paying Russia about US$63 million per seat to put an astronaut into space on a Soyuz spacecraft. A Soyuz fits three people. There are six people already living in the ISS, who will need a Soyuz capsule in which to return. What if the Russians fall short, or outright fail? Do the math. Houston, we’re gonna have a problem.

SpaceX is looking at a seven-passenger vehicle with a US$140 million price tag, which would work out to US$20 million per seat, according to former astronaut Ken Bowersox, now Vice-President of Astronaut Safety and Mission Assurance at SpaceX. With a US$1.6 billion NASA contract to deliver cargo to the Space Station in hand, Bowersox is confident his company’s Dragon spacecraft can be human-ready in three years.

Nine thousand workers lost their jobs when the United States trimmed the Space Shuttle from the budget. Another 14,000, according to Florida Today, will lose their jobs in hotels, restaurants, and other industries serving tourists.

We’ve already got domestic companies who have the proven track records the American space program requires: United Launch Alliance and United Space Alliance, whose existing fleet and technology can provide the vital link between supply on earth and demand at the International Space Station. Add SpaceX and Virgin Galactic into the equation, and despite no one being perfect, we’re going to see better results from good old American effort than we’ve seen from Russia and China together.

How much more does America have to rely on its potential adversaries? Today’s developments are not the worst thing to ever happen to our manned space program. But it’s in the top 10.

If we’re going to be putting the hit on the richest of the rich, and we should, let’s make them invest in American jobs at the same time. Bowersox suggests creating advertising revenue. Brilliant! That will help the bottom line too. American companies put money into name rights for major league stadiums and arenas. Why can’t it work for the space program? If NASA’s proven they can do anything perfectly in its 50-year history, it would be their ability to stretch the envelope.

I’m sure there are greater minds than mine working on America’s space program; in fact I’m damn-well positive. But in the past couple of weeks, the Russians and the Chinese have put billions of dollars into very expensive fireworks shows, and this country cannot afford that kind of luxury. Especially with American lives on the line.

Capable of producing 1.5 million pounds of thrust, you don't want to be too close when THIS bell rings!